MUNICH: Would the world be more peaceful if women were in charge? A challenging new book by the Harvard University psychologist Steven Pinker says that the answer is “yes.”
In The Better Angels of Our Nature, Pinker presents data showing that (...)
CAMBRIDGE: A leadership transition is scheduled in two major autocracies in 2012. Neither is likely to be a surprise. Xi Jinping is set to replace Hu Jintao as President in China, and, in Russia, Vladimir Putin has announced that he will reclaim the (...)
CAMBRIDGE: President George W. Bush was famous for proclaiming democracy promotion as a central focus of American foreign policy. He was not alone in this rhetoric. Most US presidents since Woodrow Wilson have made similar statements.
So it was a (...)
CAMBRIDGE: This month marks the 40th anniversary of Henry Kissinger's secret trip to Beijing, which launched the process of mending a 20-year breach in diplomatic relations between the United States and China. That trip, and President Richard (...)
OXFORD: When one state is preponderant in power resources, observers often refer to the situation as hegemonic. Today, many pundits argue that other countries' rising power and the loss of American influence in a revolutionary Middle East point to (...)
CAMBRIDGE: The twenty-first century is witnessing Asia's return to what might be considered its historical proportions of the world's population and economy. In 1800, Asia represented more than half of global population and output. By 1900, it (...)
CAMBRIDGE: According to a United States State Department official, the concept of “smart power” — the intelligent integration and networking of diplomacy, defense, development, and other tools of so-called “hard” and “soft” power — is at the heart (...)
CAMBRIDGE : What is going on in North Korea? On November 23, its army fired nearly 200 artillery rounds onto the South Korean island of Yeonpyeong, near the two countries' disputed maritime border, killing four – including two civilians – and (...)
CAMBRIDGE: Global government is unlikely in the twenty-first century, but various degrees of global governance already exist. The world has hundreds of treaties, institutions, and regimes for governing interstate behavior involving (...)
CAMBRIDGE: For several years, American officials have pressed China to revalue its currency. They complain that the undervalued renminbi represents unfair competition, destroying American jobs, and contributing to the United States' trade deficit. (...)
CAMBRIDGE: In the first half of the last century, Europe tore itself apart in two wars and destroyed its central role in world politics. In the second half of the century, farsighted leaders looked beyond revenge and gradually constructed the (...)
SAO PAULO: Brazil, Russia, India, and China recently held their second annual summit in Brasilia. Journalists continue to lavish attention on these so-called “BRIC” countries, but I remain skeptical of the concept.
Goldman Sachs coined the term (...)
CAMBRIDGE: When the United States Congress approved President Barack Obama's plan to extend health-care coverage to nearly all Americans, it marked the most important social legislation the country had seen since the 1960's. While Republican (...)
CAMBRIDGE: Chinese-American relations are, once again, in a downswing. China objected to President Barack Obama's receiving the Dalai Lama in the White House, as well as to the administration's arms sales to Taiwan. There was ample precedent for (...)
CAMBRIDGE: The world of traditional power politics was typically about whose military or economy would win. In today's information age, politics is also about whose "story wins.
National narratives are, indeed, a type of currency. Governments (...)
CAMBRIDGE: Will military power become less important in the coming decades? It is true that the number of large-scale inter-state wars continues to decline, and fighting is unlikely among advanced democracies and on many issues. But, as Barack Obama (...)
CAMBRIDGE: Approaching the end of his first year as president, Barack Obama has taken a bold step in deciding to increase the number of American troops in Afghanistan to over 100,000. Critics on the left point out that the Korean War crippled Harry (...)
CAMBRIDGE: When the Association of Southeast Asian Nations met in Thailand last month, South Korea was an important presence. Quietly, South Korea has moved away from being defined by its problematic North Korean neighbor, and is becoming an (...)
CAMBRIDGE: The announcement of a secret uranium enrichment facility located on a military base in Iran has sharpened President Barack Obama's efforts to place nuclear proliferation issues at the top of the world agenda. 2010 will be a critical (...)
CAMBRIDGE: The United States government's National Intelligence Council projects that American dominance will be "much diminished by 2025, and that the one key area of continued American superiority - military power - will be less significant in the (...)
CAMBRIDGE: Perhaps the most impressive current example of leadership based on the ability to communicate is Barack Obama, who has given three times as many interviews as George W. Bush and held four times as many prime press conferences as Bill (...)
CAMBRIDGE: Next year marks the 50th anniversary of the United States-Japan Security Treaty, a central feature of stability in East Asia for half a century. But now, with the Japanese experiencing a period of domestic political uncertainty, and North (...)
CAMBRIDGE: Public-opinion polls show that citizens in many democracies are unhappy with their leaders. This is particularly true in Great Britain, where a number of members of Parliament have used their housing allowances to enhance their income, (...)
CAMBRIDGE: The world economy will shrink this year for the first time since 1945, and some economists worry that the current crisis could spell the beginning of the end of globalization. Hard economic times are correlated with protectionism, as each (...)
CAMBRIDGE: Two years ago, Barack Obama was a first-term senator from a mid-western state who had declared his interest in running for the presidency. Many people were skeptical that an African-American with a strange name and little national (...)